Demon's Child
by HoshisamaValmor
Summary: Oneshot, when Hao was still Asaha Douji. The death scene of his mother Asanoha


_Author's Note:_ The most basic idea one can have with Asakura Hao. There probably is another fic around with this same situation, but I haven't read it. Don't want to offend anyone, don't want to be offended by anyone. Ok?

For those who don't get it, Asaha Douji was the original name of Hao.

**Update:** Corrected the thousands of mistakes and typos.

**DISCLAIMER:** I, HoshisamaValmor, don't own Shaman King.

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"Demon child! Demon child!"

The crowd of children kept screaming those words over and over, almost as if it was a song. None of them was older than thirteen, but the superior and evil expressions on their faces could be compared to that of adults.

"Fox child! Demon's child! Come on! Show your true form!"

The few girls in the group kept pushing a small boy with long hair, trying to make him fall, while the boys rolled rocks on their hands to threaten him.

"Devil's child," one of those boys spit. "My dad saw it, you know. He saw your mother talking to herself!"

"She doesn't talk to herself..." the smaller boy, the one they were tormenting, whispered.

"What did you say?" a girl of his age demanded, pushing him again.

"She doesn't talk to herself!" he said, jumping away from the girl. "They are real, she doesn't talk to herself."

"Sure," the older boy replied with an evil grin. "Demons. What you say is that she talks to demons. That's it, isn't it? And you, being her son, can see them too, can't you? Demon's child!"

As he yelled those last words, he suddenly threw the rock he was carrying, hitting the child's forehead harshly and throwing his little body to the ground from the impact. The child screamed and threw his hand against the open wound, feeling the warm blood on his fingers, and a single, quick tear fell from his eyes as he clenched his teeth to prevent any more pained cry to escape his lips. The group of kids around him started laughing loudly.

"Let's go," one of the girls said moments later, when their laughter started to die out. "Let's just leave the demon here. Maybe he'll bleed to death."

"Yeah!" a series of excited replies followed, some of them really expecting and hoping that the child would die from that wound.

"Our parents are gonna summon Monk Densen to deal with you demons," one last girl cursed, and they finally left, jumping and laughing as if they had just come from some kind of party, leaving the child on the ground and covered in dust.

The child didn't move for a few moments, neither did he even sit up. The pain on his head was so bad that almost made him cry, but he held the tears back. He knew the kids would come to harm him again if they saw him cry, even if they were already so far away. What made the tears want to flow wasn't really that pain, though.

It was to hear yet again people calling his mother a demon.

He was a very small boy, with long dark hair and a pony-tail, and his clothes and face were a bit dusty from all the falls and pushes of the other kids. Besides small random scars and bruises, both old and new, that had been made in other encounters like the one that had just happened. The little child didn't even have ten years old. His name was Asaha Douji.

Long minutes after the group of children had disappeared, Asaha finally lifted himself up and faintly cleared some of the dust off his clothes, trying to avoid dirtying them with the blood on his fingers, marching in the same faintly way back home.

Asaha lived with his mother in a small house near the woods that he always found to be very comfortable. However, outside it, he felt anything but comfortable, as it had been proved once more by those kids.

His mother, Asanoha, could see beings that no one else could. Spirits and demons. But since no one else could see them, it would seem she was crazy or possessed when she talked to an apparently empty space, convinced that something was really there. So people had started to call her 'kitsune', a demon fox who could disguise herself as human, and shouted curses and threats of making her reveal her true form. Because of that "condition", Asaha was chased as well. He was the son of the fox, the son of a demon. He had earned himself the title of "Demon's Child" for far longer than he could remember.

And he could also see those spirits and demons.

But the two of them weren't demons, his mother once told him. They were special, and his mother said something about 'shamans', but never really developed that subject, much to Asaha's dislike. She always said she would _'explain it later'_, when he was older. As far as he could figure it out by her few words, shamans were humans that could see and communicate with spirits. So perhaps, he and his mother were shamans. He still doubted they were humans, though; humans couldn't see spirits. Something was different in them then it was with shamans. So shamans were in another category, a superior one, they had to be.

Before he realized, he was already at home. He crossed alone the small grassy path towards their house, and he silently opened the door. It was a rather small house, but that was what made it look so welcoming and comfortable, Asaha always thought. He heard female voices nearby, and slowly moved in their direction, quickly finding two women talking.

A beautiful young woman, with blonde long hair and dressed with a soft flowered kimono, was cleaning something near the kitchen, while talking to a lady all dressed in white. The white lady had a rather strange animal near her, a bizarre mix between a rabbit and a dog, who was talking as well. Both the women's skins were pure white like snow, but the skin of the white lady was far too pale and revealed her essence. Not to mention the rabbit-dog being.

Asaha stepped quietly into the kitchen, so his mother didn't hear him. It was the other lady that spot him after a few seconds.

"Asanoha..."

The young woman stopped her cleaning and turned to where the lady pointed, where Asaha laid next the door, her pure eyes widening with dark surprise as she saw the wound on the child's forehead.

"Oh, Asaha..." she whispered, running towards him.

"What happened this time?" the rabbit-dog demon asked in an angry tone.

"They threw a rock," Asaha replied quietly, and finally let his tears flow freely.

The lady let out a tired sigh and emphatically hid her eyes behind her pale hand.

"You know, Asanoha, someday, those humans are going to kill you both," she said harshly. "Maybe if they'd see _real_ spirits and demons work, they wouldn't..."

"Yeah, I could show them some real stuff," the dog-demon agreed. "Some real catastrophe that'd put them in their pla-"

"No," Asanoha refused, holding her son for some moments in a hug and allowing the child to sob against her warm chest. "Humans are not bad, Kikuko-san, nor they need more catastrophes than we have already in this time, Daigoro. They simply..."

"...refuse to accept everything they can't understand and prefer to destroy it," the lady Kikuko finished.

Asanoha didn't reply to that, and she couldn't prevent herself from sighing. She guided Asaha to where the lady Kikuko and the demon Daigoro were and cleaned both his wound and hands with humid cloth, drying his tears next.

"It's just a scratch," his mother said to him with a kind smile. "It'll heal in no time. Does it still hurt a lot?"

Asaha felt like his heart was pumping in his head rather than his chest, but he said 'no' to not make her worried.

"We're going back to the other temple," Kikuko informed, after a while. "Are you sure you'll be all right?"

"Don't worry, Kikuko-san, Daigoro-san" Asanoha replied, smiling, and bowed to both spirits. "See you later."

"Hmph," Daigoro said. "It's your funeral. Be safe," he added nevertheless.

"We will," Asanoha assured, bowing again, and the spirits vanished into the air.

A bit of silence followed the disappearance of the spirits, as Asanoha simply stared at the wall and Asaha stared at the floor. Some minutes went by until Asanoha moved once more to restart her cleaning, but Asaha stopped her.

"They said..." Asanoha turned to him again "that they were gonna call a monk to get rid of the demons."

Although his mother's face remained calm as always, Asaha saw her light eyes wide a bit, and she didn't reply for some moments. Those actions led Asaha to understand her mother's fear of those humans, and he hated them even more.

"The lady and the demon are right," he said, closing his little hand into a tiny fist. "Humans are bad. They should all die."

"No, Asaha, that is a wrong thing to do," Asanoha told him. "To kill someone is a very, very bad thing to do. And to hate is also bad. They are not bad people - the humans. You need to be able to see the good in them, because it is much more than the evil. Do you understand?"

"They ARE bad!" Asaha shouted, fearing the tears would fall from his eyes again. "They say you are a 'kitsune', that you are a demon, so I'm a demon child. They are bad, mother."

"Asaha..."

It was clear that she had wanted to let the subject die out with her previous silence after the spirits vanished, and that she wanted it to be dropped temporally, but at the same time, she knew it wouldn't be fair to Asaha, specially seeing his worry and hatred now. But the only thing she did was sighing.

"Please, Asaha-kun," she smiled and rubbed his head as if he was a little child (he was one, anyway). "Don't worry about that. Everything will work out somehow. You know it will."

"What if it doesn't?" Asaha questioned, more harshly than before as he blushed. He always hated that his mother would rub his hair like that, and that she used the _-kun_, it made him feel like he was younger and more childish. "What if...!"

"Let's go dinner," Asanoha interrupted, and turned to the table, finishing the talk for good.

Asaha crossed his little arms in front of his chest in a very cute way, though he was trying to look angry. His mother was very good when she wanted to end the talks. One of her favorite ways was to turn her back like that, and though it might seem too simple, the truth was, she did it in such a manner that it really showed she wouldn't talk more, and one would fear what might happen if they'd try to argue.

They really didn't talk again about the humans' threats during their entire dinner, and it was actually Asanoha that picked the subject again later, when she was trying to put Asaha in bed.

"You need to rest," she recalled, as he struggled to sit up and play some more, yet he lost and laid back in his futon. "And you need to stop thinking about all that. I know... it's hard."

Hearing his mother saying that made him lift his head towards her, and he could barely fight the urge to sit up again. Her face was partially hidden behind her long hair, but Asaha could still see her sad narrowed eyes and pained expression, as if Asanoha herself was trying to hold back tears like he had done tried before.

"Mother?"

"I know it's hard, but you are still very young to have to worry about these things," she proceeded after a moment of silence, her previous worried and sad look masked beneath a kind smile that grew on her lips. "Everything will be better tomorrow, you'll see. We'll go for a walk to the woods, what do you think? See if we find some nice flowers?"

"...okay." Asaha agreed, his uncertain voice expressing his equal uncertainty about his mother's well-being. He could see and feel her worry, and he knew she was only trying to tranquilize him, as she tried when evading the conversation.

Evading it really wasn't the best strategy, but Asanoha couldn't be blamed. It was too serious and too dangerous for such a young child as Asaha to be involved more than he already was, involuntarily. But because of that, Asaha only thought more about it and grew more revengeful, especially in days like that when he was attacked and discriminated.

He hated the humans deeply. They were bad, they really were. They judged him and his mother without knowing them, and labeled them just because of something they had seen and couldn't understand. How could they insult his mother, if she was the kindest person on the planet? They had to be bad for saying those things to such a good person.

But the truth was, deep down, he wanted his mother to be really a fox in disguise like those humans shouted. Not because he found that demons were bad and so his mother was also; he had just recalled how a good person Asanoha was. No, he wanted her to be a demon because, if it was so, he would really be a demon's child, and as a demon, he would have the power to silence the humans forever. However, this was a thought that, due to his mother's wishes to understand humans, he had to hold back and pretend it didn't exist.

As if hearing all her son's worries and grudges, Asanoha caressed his hair and started to sing softly with her clean voice to calm him down.

_"Ushi tora no... kanata yori umareshi mi nareba... Yami no uchi... iku-dama, ashi-dama, shini kaeshi-dama..."_

Asaha loved that song. He wasn't sure if his mother had written it herself, but nevertheless, it was beautiful and sad. But also peaceful. Every time he felt angered or agitated, his mother would sing it to him, and he loved it. Even if he wanted, he couldn't be angry or worried with anything anymore when Asanoha sang, and so, he laid his head once more against his pillow and closed his eyes.

By the time Asanoha ended the song, Asaha was already asleep.

_"Oni kokome, yokoshima, yume..."_ she finished, smiling when she saw her child's peaceful sleeping face. She kissed his forehead and snuggled his futon to a more comfortable position. "Sleep well, Asaha... everything will be better tomorrow."

But it didn't.

The very next day, the sunset was covered by rainy clouds, turning the sky to an earlier night version. Asaha was sitting on the floor of their house playing with small Hina dolls and Asanoha was starting to prepare their dinner, when heavy steps echoed outside. Those steps carried such a scary aura that both mother and child jumped off their places, taken aback by surprise for some moments.

"Mother, what's...?"

"Go hide," Asanoha told him before he could finish his words. "No, no, not here," she added quickly, when Asaha started to run to his room. "Outside. Go through the back, hurry!"

"Mother, you can't stay here either then!" Asaha recalled, controlling himself from screaming because of the strangers that were getting closer. Something in his mother's tone seemed scary, scarier than anything those men might be or do.

"Don't worry, I'll find you," she promised, taking a quick look through the window. "I'll find you, Asaha, but now, you must hide. And no matter what you hear or see, don't come back here, all right?"

"But!"

"Go!"

Asaha finally obeyed and ran through the back passage of their small house, to the nearby bushes and hid behind them. He was small enough to be totally covered by them, so, out of a mix of curiosity and fear, he followed the line of bushes that surrounded their house, so he could see the front side and the men that had arrived. Asaha wasn't sure if his mother knew who the men were, but both of them sensed they weren't good news.

He could hear distant voices while he circled his house, and as soon as he arrived the front, he saw that the men were already inside it, and only to increase his fear, some of them were holding his mother in her place roughly by her arms.

"Don't you also have a kid?" a big and fat man asked with a rather sarcastic and superior tone, dressed with more noble clothes than the rest of the men accompanying him. More noble than Asaha had ever seen before, for that matter. "The Demon's Child we heard about, where is he?"

"He's not here, and he's none of that!" Asanoha answered, trying to release herself from her captures.

"Uh-uh, sure. I see. Anyway, we'll deal with him later," the fat man - Asaha realized now that he was a monk - said. "Tie her down. Foxes in disguise have this end."

"Let's just burn the entire house with her!" one of other man said. "She will surely show her true form!"

"Precisely."

_Mother!_, a voice in Asaha's head screamed, and fortunately he didn't scream himself, otherwise he would have been discovered by the men that were coming outside again. He couldn't see his mother anymore, but she must have been tied as the monk had ordered. And did they say 'burn the house'?

A whirlwind of feelings, far beyond anything a child of his age could sustain, took hold of him. It was impossible to distinguish a single feeling that was controlling him, but he guessed panic would be a nice guess. It was dark, no moon lightened the sky yet, he was hiding, he couldn't see his mother, the scary men were shouting and laughing loudly and a terrible aura surrounded them and the whole scenario. None of those could mean something good, and he also feared the monk would be able to hear his uncontrolled breathing, though the man was too busy laughing with the soldiers next to him.

"Light them," the monk instructed.

Asaha had to cover his mouth with his hand to literally choke his scream as he saw them lightning three torches and throwing them to the fragile house, which was immediately caught on fire.

The child couldn't move. He simply couldn't. It was like a heavy invisible cloak had just befallen over him and nailed his body to the ground, preventing him to make the slightest movement. Only his eyes widened, and tears started to fall from them like silent rain as he saw his small house turning itself into a gigantic torch, dyeing the surroundings with its infernal red tone. The men and the monk kept laughing and celebrating, but to Asaha, it was like everything had fell into the most deep and unbreakable silence, in which the crackling wood was a distant and faded sound. Everything dissolved in a black hole, leaving only that torch intact, the torch that was destroying the only thing he ever knew and the only person he ever loved.

"Mom..."

No one heard him. The crackling sounds of the wood weren't as faded in reality as they were in Asaha's mind, so they didn't allow the men to hear his whimpering voice.

The time on that endless night hadn't frozen, but Asaha couldn't notice it. The night sky finally showed itself behind the layer of grey clouds, with its bright full moon and thousands of sparkling stars, and the monk spoke again after all that time.

"Search the woods," he ordered. "If the kid wasn't hiding in the house, he has to be near. Find him."

"Yes, Monk Densen," the soldiers obeyed, immediately parting and searching each side of the forest.

Asaha was forced to wake from his shock when he saw the men moving, and after another gaze at his now totally-burned house and at his mother's killer, his eyes still drowned in tears, he started running as fast and as quiet as he could, without any idea where he would go. There wasn't any place he could go to anymore, the only shelter he ever had was destroyed; he just had to run, far from anyone and everyone.

He ran for nearly one hour, occasionally stumbling into rocks and falling because of his drowned sight, but he never looked back nor did he stop. He wanted to run until he died out of exhaustion, but unfortunately his small body forced him to stop before that could happen, falling to his knees next to an old wooden warehouse. Every muscle of his body ached for the forced strength exercise, and he was freezing suddenly because of the cold night weather. He knew he was too tired to run any further. If those men were to find him... he didn't care any longer. If they wanted to kill him, then they were free to do so.

Still crying, Asaha un-did his ponytail to try to keep his neck warm, his long hair waving in the sound of the wind, and he randomly looked around, hoping to find anything that might keep his body warm. Surprisingly, he found a rather old cloak forgotten in the street, and he quickly covered himself with it, making it resemble a cape. Afterwards, he weakly crawled again to that old house and curled himself beneath the cloak, trying to rest against the cold and hard soil and trying to ignore the frightening howling wind.

He was so scared. What the hell was he supposed to do now? Where was he supposed to go? He was alone. That idea was hitting and pumping in his head painfully as if to make him understand that fact, but it was too scary for him to be able to totally apprehend it, or rather, to _want_ to apprehend it. Why did things turned out that way?

A renewed wave of tears caught his eyes as he wished for his mother to come with all his heart. He just wished she could be there with him to reassure him and sing to him as she always did, saying that everything would be alright, that there would be a way. Or maybe just her spirit; she was dead after all, wasn't she. Those humans killed her, like the demons had said and like Asaha had feared. If he was able to see everyone else's soul or spirit or whatever it was, why couldn't he see his mother's? Could it be that the only person he really wanted to see, whichever way it was, flesh and bone or merely a soul, was the only one he couldn't?

"Mommy..."

Although that word escaped his dry lips involuntarily, he didn't try to silence it the second time he whimpered it. _'Everything will work out'_... that was wrong. Nothing had work out to him, and now there he was, alone, with only that sorrow and hate growing in his chest painfully. He was going to kill all humans one day, he vowed. All the humans were the same, the same evil and greedy creatures. He had to destroy them all. But how could a child do that? He didn't care, he would just do it sooner or later.

But for now, all he wanted was to hear his mother's peaceful voice, to wash away those thoughts, but no one came, no voice appeared besides that hideous howling of the wind. There was no one to sing to him anymore. He was alone.

And countless demons still marched and sang in front of him.

**~おわり**

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_Author's Notes:_ I really hate my writing. I'm SO basic, my vocabulary is running shorter every minute. I don't understand how I have 18 from 0 to 20 in English. I guess it's just because the general degree of English in this place is around 12 and their knowledge is the kind of 'what's your name'

The ending is in reference to the scene where Hao and Ohachiyo met, although I know that only happened a while after Asanoha's death. Some of the lines used are from Mappa Douji manga. The song Asanoha sings to Hao is his theme in the anime, Inyou no Chigiri. Being its singer Takayama Minami, Hao's seiyu, I can't help to imagine Hao singing it himself, and I thought it was a good idea to have been Asanoha to teach him.

If Hao sounds out of character by any reason, do recall that he's a child here; he can't be more than 10 years by his images in chapter 230 and in Mappa Douji. Hell, I would cry a lot if my mother was burned right in front of my eyes. Sorry if you wouldn't.

Finally, you may notice that I made Asanoha use Yoh's line of "everything will work out". I just thought I'd add because she'd said that, then she died, meaning that was a stupid and non-realist thought, and when Yoh says the same thing 1000 years later, it kinda just drives Hao mad, like in episode 61. Just some of my personal thoughts and possible connections.

Hope you can review, either you loved it or hated it or anything. Just say something, this is my first SK fanfic.


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